Grisham’s `The Pelican Brief’ a page turner

THE PELICAN BRIEF, by John Grisham, Doubleday, 371 pages, $22.50.

There was a time when John Grisham was an up-and-coming lawyer. With the release of “The Pelican Brief,” his second best seller out of his three novels, it can be said with some conviction that Grisham is an up-and-coming writer, as well.

Following in the footsteps of “The Firm” — his second book and first best seller — Grisham’s latest legal thriller solidifies his current place in the literary world.

The plot of “The Pelican Brief” is sometimes complex: Two Supreme Court justices — one a 91-year-old liberal legend, the other the youngest and most conservative justice — are assassinated within hours of one another.

The country is shocked. The golf-loving president, with re-election on his mind, the FBI and the CIA are clueless as to who did the killing and what the motive might be.

Meanwhile, in New Orleans, a brilliant second-year Tulane University law student named Darby Shaw has crafted an intriguing and meticulous, if somewhat off-the-wall, synopsis of who may have hired the assassin.

Through the chain of people who know people, the paper, tabbed The Pelican Brief, winds up in the hands of the White House and the FBI. Those in the Oval Office ask the FBI to ignore it. The FBI complies.

Before Darby can finish her next law school paper, however, she narrowly escapes death by a car bomb, an explosion which claims her lover, law Professor Thomas Callahan.

Darby then realizes the obvious. The Pelican Brief has fallen into the wrong hands and somebody is looking to eliminate its source. The story then takes on a cat-and-mouse game — from New Orleans to New York City to Washington, D.C.

Darby soon gets hooked up with Washington Post reporter Gray Grantham, who is trying to break the biggest political story since Watergate. Together, they work to confirm “The Pelican Brief” as fact. That is, if Darcy — Grantham’s one confirmed source — can stay alive long enough for the story to be published.

Grisham’s strong point is his ability to keep a story moving. Something is always happening.

The author’s biggest weakness is his dialogue. When two characters must pass time talking with another, the story tends to drag. Soon, though, something else has happened, sending the focus back into the story.

While Grisham’s personal history sounds a bit like another up-and-coming writer, don’t call the Mississippi native a poor man’s Scott Turow (the lawyer-turned-author of “Presumed Innocent” and “Burden of Proof”).

Grisham’s novels are more quickly paced, more exciting, and make the reader want to turn page after page.

John Nash is a reporter on the NEWS sports desk.